So you've seen your instagram influencers flaunting their incredible results from just a small looped material band, usually around their thighs as they squat, but ever thought to yourself, do booty band workouts even work?
Well we take a deeper dive into the benefits and drawbacks of booty band workouts, what muscles they work and take an honest look at their effectiveness.
What are booty bands?
Booty bands are small looped bands that usually go around your thighs or calves to work your leg muscles, usually your glutes, hence the term booty bands.
You can get booty bands in many different materials like the rubber CrossFit resistance band or even the more comfortable material resistance band where some have a rubberise inside to prevent slipping.
Booty bands often come in a few different sizes depending on the resistance you prefer, obviously the tighter/thicker the band, the more resistance you'll feel.
What's the difference between booty bands and resistance bands?
Technically booty bands are resistance bands, they're just a smaller version. CrossFitters, powerlifters, weightlifters alike will know resistance bands that help with pull ups or warming up/mobility, which are usually longer and made out of rubber.
Booty bands are just a smaller version but often made more comfortable by using material and offering non-slip inners.
Booty band workouts vs resistance machines?
The good thing about booty bands is actually their resistance is felt throughout the rep, much like many resistance machines you see in your run-of-the-mill gym.
As you go through the rep in a booty band, the resistance actually gets harder as you stretch the band out, something which you don't see in resistance machines.
One thing you don't get with a booty band however, is the option to add more resistance. Something which is an option for resistance machines.
Booty bands however are incredibly portable... you're not going to be carting around a abductor machine with you do go and get in a quick workout at home. With a booty band you can. One more for the booty band.
But how effective are booty band workouts?
To answer that question we need to define what we mean when we say effective.
For most people, this either means to build strength, grow muscles or to lose fat. Well, in the right booty band workouts, the booty band can do all three.
When we look at how our body and muscles build strength we look at our maximal efforts. Typically powerlifters or strongmen (pound for pound the strongest people on the planet) will accumilate an incredible amount of mass by lifting heavy weights many times within their workouts to an almost maximal effort. They do this to condition their muscles, body and central nervous system to manage an incredibly high volume of weight lifted.
Good news, you can do this within a strength building booty band workout. Just like powerlifters and strongmen, you can accumilate volume in your booty band workout by increasing the amount of reps you complete in a set, almost to the point of failure. For example if you usually do 10-12 reps in each set, why not try a to failure set where you try and go to failure. This could be all the way up to 20, 25 or even 30 reps and complete 5 sets of these to failure reps for each exercise in your booty band workout.
This almost certainly will be harder and you will feel the burn the next few days after your workout, but this is how you build strength.
What exercises can I do with booty bands?
There are a plethora of exercises you can do with your booty band included, banded squats, lunges, kickbacks, glute bridges and more.
